User blog:Ren X Jr. King/How to Make a Good Series
Hey Hey guys! This a tutorial on how to make a series, and with this guide as well as your enhanced creativity skillls you already have, you can make your self a well-built series that you won't suffer too much from slacking on. Keep reading! 'Description' Isn't this the key to starting everything, whether it be a book, game, or por-...... portrait, heh portrait? That one-sentence idea! See what most of us tend to do when starting a series is that they come up with this, then skip right ahead to making episodes (which won't end up very well). This is supposed to be used as your base, because your making a very complicated thing: a series. When you draw, you must start out with basic shapes that will be drawn over as complex objects and characters. Whenever you are starting almost anything, you must start simple, break it down, and continue to do so until you got it right. That's why this one-sentence description is key: It's your starting idea, of what your entire series revolves around. I'll give you an example: After Ren Troy discovers a watch that will forever change his life, he joins a team of superheroes and fights against the dangers of the Earth. A simple idea, not a super original one but the way you break it down and make it into your own story can make it unique. It isn't exactly the sentence I would market when my series is complete, but eh it works... 'Storyline' Create a storyline of that sentence. First, at this point you'll want to plan how many seasons you want to work with. One two or three is acceptable, as when finish with the entire episode production you can continue on to more seasons if you wish. Let's pretend you chose to plan three seasons ahead. Create a one-sentence story for each season, in chronological order (unless you want to make an exception, like a flashback season or something but flashbacks usually only last an episode). I chose to do two seasons, so here I go: Season 1: When 16-year old Ren Troy discovers a watch that will forever change his life, he is recruited to train alongside a team of young superheroes to prepare to face off against an evil supervillian genius who markets dangerous machine weaponry to criminals. *Note: Have one of the superheroes use armor that was invented by the supervillain. Something like that. Since its season 1, I chose to take a little information from the main description of the entire series in there as well as state what's going on, as well as who the main villain of the series is. It doesn't state too much storyline information but it's alright, we've got our heroes and the villain (though it doesn't have to be so black and white like that). Season 2: 'Two years into the future, the now expanded team of heroes face trouble when a massive alien ship shows up, and they don't seem friendly Yeah...I skipped to the future (kinda like Young Justice did). I gave another simple storyline starter for Season 2, but I'm going to do the smart thing and forget season 2 (or the following seasons after) and breakdown Season 1, because I'm smart. 'BME Beginning - Introduce your characters, introduce the conflict, introduce, introduce... Middle - Advance the action, keep enough conflict going. End - The finale, how does it end, what happens after. I'm not really good at explaining that part but I'll give you an example: A lost Ren Troy discovers a watch in the middle of the forest, and one man recruits him alongside a team of young superheroes to train with in order to put and end to one supervillain genius who manufactures dangerous weapons. As they take down many enemies with tech made by him, they also learn how to use their abilites to their full potential before the villain puts his final plan into action after much preparation. He launches an army of the same enemies the heroes have defeated as well as new ones, along with the supervillain in a incredibly power machine himself on their home city and it is up to the heroes to stop him. Each sentence is BME, and explains the plot quite well. Seasons are basically the main conflicts of the series (or groups og them), and are to be treated as such. What was shown above was a summary of the entire season I'm planning (for the sake of this tutorial). 'Characters' Take as many characters as hinted in that season-wide summary you made. So in my case it would be the kid, the team of superheroes he joins, the adult leader who recruited, maybe some ideas for the enemies they take down, and the main villain. So that would make for this main character list: *Team of superheroes (maybe a team of six, who cares what's cliche in the amount of heroes you have, if your doing a superhero team-type series) **Ren Troy **Hero 2 **Hero 3 **Hero 4 **Hero 5 **Hero 6 *Adult Leader *Enemy 1 *Enemy 2 *Enemy 3 *Main Villian That's eleven "main characters" that I've done. Now to come up with character concepts for each of them that involve: *'Name (P1):' What do they go by, what were they named at birth, the main stuff *'Personality words (P1):' Words that describe their personality. *'Habits (P1):' What do they tend to do/say? Do they have any routines? *'Outfit (P2):' What do they wear? (commonly, you can have characters that dress differently as humans do :P) *'Appearance (P2): '''What do they look like naked...? Ugh I mean like hair color, eye color, skinny, fat, curvy don't be nasty. *'Past history (P3):' Their life before when they are planned to be introduced to the series. *'Powers, abiliites, equipment (P4):' What powers do they have, what can they do that's extraordinary? (in relative to the average human) *'Storyline (P5):' What part will they play in the series *'Goal (P5):' What do they want *'Motivation (P5):' Why do they want it *'Conflict (P5):' What stops them from getting it *'Epiphany (P5):' What will they learn or how will they change That should make up about a page for each character, and you're doing good. 'Episodes' Don't get excited, you. You're not starting to write one, you're simply fleshing some out a bit. Now most seasons on real shows have 13 episodes each. To put BME into that, I'd say the beginning is the first 3 episodes, the middle is the next 6 episodes and the end is the final 4 episodes (that's not exactly how you have to balance it out, it's just a preference). So... '''Episodes 1-3 Summary' A lost Ren Troy discovers a watch in the middle of the forest, and one man recruits him alongside a team of young superheroes to train with in order to put and end to one supervillain genius who manufactures dangerous weapons. Episodes 4-9 Summary As they take down many enemies with tech made by him, they also learn how to use their abilites to their full potential before the villain puts his final plan into action after much preparation. Episodes 10-13 Summary He launches an army of the same enemies the heroes have defeated as well as new ones, along with the supervillain in a incredibly power machine himself on their home city and it is up to the heroes to stop him. You've got that, good. Now it's good to state the purpose/spynosis of each episode (even if it's just "filler").So here's my god damn example (BE CREATIVE): *'BEGINNING' *Episode 1 = Introduce Ren Troy and the use of his new powers against Enemy 1, introduce the team leader towards the end. *the team leader should be all like, REN TROY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN ME AND MY TEAM OF FIGHTERS, and end the episode before he can answer. That would be epic, and by episode 2 everyone would know his answer was yes.) *Episode 2 = Introduce the team, show their initial bad fighting skills and bad teamwork as they train and (maybe) battle an irrelevant villain. *Episode 3 = Give a hint to the main conflict, and have them do a search mission for Enemy 2. (running out of enemies already? lol I'll just make more) *'MIDDLE' *Episode 4 = Shy away from the plot a bit, start some at-home conflict and have them battle an irrelevant villain. *Episode 5 = Introduce the main villain (not to the heroes though), while on the other end have the heroes going around looking for him. Maybe an underwater mission to see how they manage in aquatic conditions. They don't find him, but they do find Enemy 1. (MAKE HERO 2 BE THE STAR OF THIS EP *his aquatic powers or something (let's pretend I put that on his page from the last step)) *Episode 6 = Enemy 2 breaks out of the prison they put him in, and they search around the ship only to discover he's stolen something, and they must find away to fix the ship before it crashes to the ground while half of them go after Enemy 2. (holy crap I haven't used Enemy 3 yet) MAKE HERO 5 AND 6 THE STAR *Episode 7 = The heroes are introduced to the villain in this episode, and he tells them their true plan. In attempts to stop it by the end of the episode they realize they have been fooled and the villain lied to them. *Episode 8 = This whole episode should show the heroes outside of their heroic lives, how they manage to live their regular lives will disaster strikes unexpectedly (maybe from the first irrelavent villain in episode 2). *Episode 9 = I don't know, actually I mean it's the final episode before the "End" episodes. Maybe another search mission for Enemy 3 (finally that guy) (STAR HERO 3 and 4) *'END' *Episode 10 = Have a mass attack from Enemies 1-3 as well as equipped versions of all the irrelevant enemies on, idk, a restaurant? Have them bring a warning to the city as everyone attempts to evacuate the city as the team goes after all of them. *Episode 11 = Evacuation continues, the team end up going their seperate ways on terms of having cross-sided decision after the leader is nowhere to be found. *Episode 12 = With the team split apart, the main villain leads the invasion with many more enemies (keep in mind that not EVERYONE is evacuated), and show things from the villain perspective. *Episode 13 = Part of the team show up, and rebel against the army of enemies. They seem to be losing and even go into hiding until going back out again, while the other part of the team show up with the leader and finish it of (This part deserves two episodes, really idk), the main villain escapes while everyone else is arrested (hint for villain showing up in future seasons?????). This is your series, go crazy (but don't confuse your audience)! Hell if I was actually doing this I'd switch what I put for Episode 1 and what I put for episode three if I wanted to, or plan to show a part of episode 11 in episode 1 that doesn't spoil to much. Yours should be better than the one above considering you actually did do all the character descriptions. If you really like to live dangerously you could take something like that and lengthen it into 2 seasons, with the first season having 5 begginning episodes or something, the rest of the both seasons being middle area until the last 6 or 7 episode, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore but you get me. 'Notes' Along the way, while your doing this entire long and hard process, you can add ideas on a sidenote ANYTIME. Like just do something crazy like: *Take away Big Chill's invisibility powers, he's a bit too powerful with that. *Ben Tennyson (the team leader) has a ship called the Arkcross Angel. *Sometimes in a season Ren Troy as Bullfrag should say something cool like "You know, the ladies love Bullfrag. They really love Bullfrag..." "Ren what the hell?!" 'Episode Summary' This is the part where you come up with summaries for each episode that match the descriptions you put for each episode. Summaries should be a page long, oh and I'm gonna waste my time and give you an example of mine, from Episode 2: (by the way, please don't name your episode just yet) ' Ben Tennyson brings Ren Troy into the Arkcross Angel, a massive ship that sits upon the skies just above Expli City that apears somewhat outdated. As he shows him around the entire ship, his teammates show up and are introduced to him, and one of the teammates remain suspicious of him. He begins to learn their names and what kind of life they come from (though the suspicious one doesn't tell), and Ren tells them how he discovered his powers as well as other events from the previous episode. The whole team goes through a drill (which is seen a real by Ren) and they are all ejected out of the ship in order to find a safe way to land, and Ben Tennyson gets them back up by means of a smaller ship called the Ark Halo which he has a few of. As Ren recovers from what he jsut dramatically experienced, the team explain to him what's going on as they go on into a special room.' ' This is the training room, where controlled creatures as well as artifical bots and fake traps are there for the team to battle against as if it was the real deal. While the team members initially do well on their own, this will be the first time they train together as a team. The entire training session goes poorly as the teammates screw each other up in strategy, and their attempts to succesfully fight together against the artificial threats that attack them BLA BLA BLA' Okay that's all I'm going to do. What I did (or was I was doing) was I planned to do the page with 6 paragraphs each. The first paragraph focuses on Ren being introduces, the second on training, the third about how the team and the leader handles their failure and so on. Your version should be longer (obviously) and better (because you actually did ALL of the previous steps, I'm doing this off the top of my head...), and when your done doing that one-page summary of each episode you should have about 13 pages of summary. As you do each summary you can go back and change some things from previous pages, you can do whatever you must change for the sake of the season. 'More on Characters and even Objects' This is where you do pages for things you noticed you added into your episode. Like for me (based on the above) I would've done a page on Arkcross Angel (and all it's rooms and the entire map of it), Expli City (and major places and buildings on it, hell do a map for this one if you can, IT HELPS!!!! for locations), and the Ark Halo. If I had added minor characters in there, I would do a page for them. The point is for you to understand your characters, understand your places, vehicles, objects very well (Hell I should've done a page on the Omnitrix as well as pages for each alien he has, especially if fanon *doesn't matter if it's not your fanon alien and you simply got rights to it*). Your trying to understand the elements that make up your series to help tell the story better. 'Writing the Episode' Once you've done that, you're ready to begin writing your episode. Begin the first draft, the 30 page episode you plan to write based on what you wrote for the one page summary. I'm saying it should at least be 30 pages, it can be more (but shouldn't be less). Just start writing, go about how your episode should go. Once your done writing, stop. Go back later during the same day to see what could be better and what can be changed, and change it. No matter how big or small. Rewrite the entire episode if you really think it's that bad. Then go back the next day, or after you finish writing the next episode to see what you can change. Do that as many times as you think you should, and I don't just mean spelling, puncuation and grammar errors, I mean dialogue, how well you describe that tiger punching the unicorn and the unicorn's reaction, how well you transitioned from location to location, or from mood to mood in the story. Did you just have them fighting one second and become friends again? Or did you make them smoothly transition to that manner? Did you explain the new location well enough without having to simply say "In the Bahamas" or something like that? This is all stuff you can get tips on looking around on writing a book, writing a fanfiction, just simply writing. When your satisfied with each episode you've written and you have a full 390-page season, good. Leave it for a week or two, then go back to it. See what's up, and THEN you have your season. *Make pages for extra stuff you add in this pages still, like if you added a special device that was minor to the episode. You never know when you might want to use it again.* By the way, don't skip a line for every dialogue, it wastes space and gives an excuse for your episode to feel shorter. Just do something like "Ren: Hey guys, what's going on in there" "Sandra: Nothing much" "Ren: Cool" and you can skip the lines in the post-publication stage.) 'Your Series Page' I looked at series on wikipedia, and I have experience making series pages (I guess), so here it is: 'Introduction' Alright, here you go: (Series Name) 'is a (American? German? Fanfiction?) series created by '(Who created it) and co-produced by (Who didn't think of it with you but helped with the planning; don't do this if no one did) and co-written by (Who didn't do most of the planning but help alot with writing) for BTFF (or your "company" and what-not). The series revolves around (the protagonists) who (what are their jobs, what are they supposed to do through-out the series *don't reveal anything important*). As of (Date), # episodes have aired. 'Series Template' Have one. If you look at, I don't know, HORIZONS it's that tall box with the main info in it. 'Overview' I'm going to use Yopo's overview from his series, Horizons. (Take the time to read it's episodes and other works on this wiki, it might help you) "Ryan Felton is a high school student who is beat up, picked on, and all alone. He has virtually no power until one day, he does. Originally aiming to use this power to take revenge, after an encounter with Shane Emerald, he discovers he's not the only one with these strange powers." That one's a good overview, though it reveals too many names (Shane). It sorta hints at episode 1, and then encourage you to read the series as it hints what will go on throughout the series. It's purpose isn't to advertise, it's just supposed to tell what the series is about without being too revealing. 'Fans' Don't go around asking people for signatures, though you can ask them to take a peek at your first episode and see if they want to become a fan. Your fan list goes kinda like this: * 09:13, December 26, 2015 (UTC) *Another one *Another one *Another one *The key to success Duh. 'Characters' This is simply for a list of major protagonists, no need to link to pages about anyone else (except on episode pages maybe) *Ren Troy *Hero 2 (Still didn't give them names) *Hero 3 *Hero 4 *Hero 5 *Big Hero 6 *Ben Tennyson 'Episode Guide' Yes, your episode guide should be on your series page. DO NOT ADD AN EPISODE ONTO THE LIST UNLESS IT HAS BEEN PUBLISHED (don't even confirm there's a second season coming, especially if you haven't made it). See I really don't think it's much of a good idea to state what each episode of your season is about, because spoilers and it reveals too much. But for those who want to fill your episode guide with more than just episode name, here's a layout I'd use: 'Season 1' *'Season 1 Episode 1 - A New Nut, Word Count: #, Airdate: Dec 1st, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Oct 1st, 1003' *'Season 1 Episode 2 - An Old Nut, Word Count: 1,234, Airdate: Dec 7th, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Oct 7th, 1003' *'Season 1 Episode 3 - The New Nut, Word Count: 666, Airdate: Dec 14th, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Oct 14th, 1003' *'Season 1 Episode 4 - The Old Nut, Word Count: 333, Airdate: Dec 21st, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Oct 21st, 1003' *'Season 1 Episode 5 - The Nut Finale, Word Count: 911, Airdate: Dec 28th, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Oct 28th, 1003' 'Season 2' *'Season 2 Episode 1 - A New Nut, Word Count: #, Airdate: Dec 1st, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Dec 1st, 1003' *'Season 2 Episode 2 - A New Nut, Word Count: #, Airdate: Dec 1st, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Dec 7th, 1003' *'Season 2 Episode 3 - A New Nut, Word Count: #, Airdate: Dec 1st, 2078, Production Date: (When you finished the episode for good) Dec 24th, 1003' See guys, when you've already made all the episodes for your season, there won't be such thing as publishing episodes late. It's full-proof! 'Trivia' Details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value. That's the exact definition of trivia, so something like: *This series is fake and was only made for the purpose of a tutorial, haha got you guys. *The ideas for series on the tutorial are for free use but like, be original or something. (Gosh) I'm not a fan of trivia like "This was created on the user's birthday" or nothing like that, make your trivia interesting if you can. AND THAT'S ITS! You got your series page right there, nothing complicated needed. 'More' After you've produced a season, don't release your episodes everyday. Your entire season will be finished in about 2 weeks, and if shows ran like that it would suck. Give us the wait, the OH WHATS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT, the feeling that there's more to the story. So yah. When it comes to information about your characters, don't put everything you've planned about them on their page. Only put as much as you can on what the series itself has revealed so far (you can hire someone to do this). Kinda like the Ben 10 Canon Wiki, you think the actual people who created and produced Ben 10 put their information on there better yet update there. They aired their episodes, information and pages based on it were done. Check out Ben Tennyson's page on the wiki, it is LOOOONG. Do not tell anyone about you series. Not until you begin advertising it and showing it to everyone, which can only happen after at least one season is produced. Exceptions are for if more than one person came up with the idea (which will be explain), and if you have co-writers. For co-writers, they should only get the one-sentence description at first, and the page-long episode summary of episode 1. When they accept the position is when you give them an insight to everything you have to offer) When uploading episodes, have a Microsoft Word download link for it just before the actual episode (because, you know I have mobile device too and I'd rather not have to type in the link to the wikia then search for the page just to get to it. Plus what if the wifi is out?) And hey, if you're fans are willing to take the time to read your "long" episode, then they should also have comments on it, questions yah know. 'Tips' *You can go about blogs on episode production information if you are putting your series on hiatus or other production changes are being made. *Yes, it is a long process but think how relaxed you'll be in the end knowing you can just drop an episode when the time is right. *No need to completely disappoint anyone if you cancel a series because either they won't know it existed or at least season has been made already so they gain a little satisfaction from the promise of that. *Fanon Con - Search it on this wiki and look at that, it's good for you AFTER producing at least a seaon. 'Conclusion' I'm sorry. I'm too sleepy to really focus on this tutorial right now so I kinda rushed it a little. Thanks for reading anyways, and if you have any questions, drop 'em in the comments. Now go and make your damn series already! Category:Blog posts